Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-01-02
seen IN IMAGINATION.
He Read HIS Wgra After 1t Was Published and
Admits Il Was Fake '-Getting L0stm
London Alter Telling People All
About It.

The author of one OF the most interest
Ing books OF European travel ever writer
i, a gentleman who was never outside o
| New York city until after his book wa:
published. After its publication the au
| thor paid himself the compliment OF read
/ inc it, and il So interested him that hC
thought he would like to 20 to Europe
| The work was in its eleventh edition anG
had made great popular hit when the
author bought ticket on the White
Star ine and embarked Tor foreign lands.
! His ocean voyage and arrival IN the
old world We're delightful tor he
was traveller who had never
seen anything, and to whom everything
had the charm OfnOyelty. After spending
year upon looking upon things that he
had described, this happy traveller who
wrote his impressions first and saw his
sights altcrward, embarked for home, and
arrived in New York yesterday on the
steamship Adriatic.
lie sat last night in Il cosy uptown hotel
by a cracking ire and chatted with I
friend After Lighting a fresh cigar he
said: Yes that book was fake from
beginning to end. "
GLOW did you come to write it first and
do your travelling afterward?'
"Well," said the celebrated traveller,
you know that make my bread and but
ter ny writing anything tnat comes along.
am descriptive writer ut s. column, II
iOurncyman humoriSt, philosopher at
liity cents an hour and u poet ut twenty
live cents IN inch Of rhyme. l write for
everything FROM the back corner OF the
Century to the front page of Tit Bits. The
things which come along are aImanacS, po-
liticll and after dinner speeches, Diamond
rohherics of actresses, college prize essays,
n,wspaper Sketches and comic iIugleS. l
am not alone in this work, and | may say
in passing that the speeches of well known
Congressman of this city were written by
an able newspaper reporter OF one ol the
morning dailics.
well, one summer day, four years ago,
when WIS hard pressed and hadn't done
ANYTHING Tor week but pun and scurNy
set of moral verses, Tor which got 81 %,
though the moral alone was worth -, an
nut-ul-towu publisher came TO me and asked
u
told him had never travelled fifty miles in
nv life. He sid it didn' make any differ
encc, Is il was not Necessary to travel to
write a book. lie asked me not to feel
dl!fdcnt, aud said that he had never tray
cled himself. Well, said I, if you've
never been away from home, and I've
never been away from home, the book may
he ridiculous no, he replied; they will
look upon il Is new view of Europe
The publisher then told me that he had
who had been tramp in
Europe, and who would correct any glar
ing mistakes might make We struck 4
bargain got all the money | could in
advance, and went to work. ~
GLOW could you describe what you had
not seen ~
II will tell YOU got no end OF en-
encyclopedias, and guide books and photo
graphs l read seven or eight hours day
and made copiouS notes. saw Europe
through the eyes o! fifty people. | collect
I'll lot OF petty facts, OF no interest Il
give realism to the work. Then mapped
out the book in mathematical way and
decided how mach | would give to each
part ot my subject. Th,n settled my
,clt at q desk in my garnet and went to
writing On" OF the difficulties was 10 get
tn rapport with my theme | wrote up
Venice after a days fishing on ShpepShead
hay spent two days IN the Cat
,kills before writing up the Alps.
| wrote the chapter on an hour in
the Sultans Scragliu, smoking an old corn
cob pipe up in my garnet and carrying On
an innocent Irritation with red-headcd
girl in "a tenement window opposite. When
wanted to write up the lIlzIrodi of Ma
pies | went into Mulberry street and
studied the Italians in the alleys and courts
there. | went up to Jones Wood and
Wendell Park to prepare to write up the
beer gardens OF Vienna and their German
holiday makers. Before writing OF the
Malay sailors on the ships ut London
visited the Malay colony in New York.
Before got through my book discovered
that New York was an epitome OF Europe,
and that only had 10 take a street car to
visit the nations of the earth.
The book was 4 long aud weary job,
but at luSt | got through with it and sent
it to the publisher The proot-reader took
hold of ii then. | believe that he had
slept in every hege, and been in every Jail,
and visited every interesting place III Eu-
rope lie made 50 many valuable cOrrec-
tions that four or five chapters Of the book
had Ia he rewritten. The book was rushed
through the press, literally advertised, and
nut ON the market three years ago. | had
worked the Publisher for all he was worth
while | was sending in the manuscript and
was considerably ahead OF him, and 50 that
WIS the last | ever expected to hear ofmy
travels. The book was favor
ably reviewed by the press. which said 1t
was the work of an original observer, and
that some of the descriptive passages were
fine bits of realistic writing.
The first edition brought me dress
coat and one of those coffin shirt-trOnts.
found paragraphs in the newspapers speak
iuu of me as the celebrated traveller |
BEGAN 10 think that | was no longer hack
writer. but 4 man of letters, and when /
received an invitation to a fashionable re-
ception in Fifth avenue, got myself up
regardless of expense, and concluded that
| must he a literary ATTEST. ! found that
my hosts were lion hunters, who had
picked on me rs a great traveller, not as
writer, and wanted to parade meas an eNi-
dcnCe OF their social success. l had never
been in society, and no one knew anything
about me; - no one could say | had
never been TO Europe. thought | would
carry out the farce. So | went to score
of teas and kettlcdrums that winter, where
| was always meeting people who had been
to Europe fifteen ar sixteen times, and
was ever in danger OF exposing my lgno-
rance. To avoid such u catastrophe | read
mp pretty, out-Ot-the-way places barron OF
interest, where nobody had ever been, and
when got to party and was pushed to
the wall for an account of my travels, !
would describe some by-path Of Europe
that no one had ever traveIsed, or some
insignificant village that no traveller had
ever seen.
Il found that this eNpcdient, which |
reSortcd to out of sheer desperation, great
ly increased my reputation. The people
said that was as familiar with the re-
modest monks and corners of Europe as or